Managed services proposal: per-user pricing, example

A managed services proposal prices support per user per month, with servers and network gear per device, and onboarding as a separate one-off fee. Say exactly what one user includes, set a minimum number of users, and write down how the bill changes when staff join or leave. Below: the sections, a decision table for per-user or per-device, a costed sample in euros, and a clause for user changes you can copy.

What is different about an IT support proposal

The skeleton is the same as for any client proposal: their situation, your plan, the scope, the price, the terms and one next step. The guide to what changes per industry sets out that skeleton, with IT next to nine other trades. Three things are particular to managed IT.

1. The unit is a user, not a project. Clients compare offers per user per month. Quote in another unit and they have to convert before they can compare.
2. The count moves. A firm hires, loses a temp, opens a second office. Your proposal has to say what happens to the price when it does.
3. The work never finishes. There is no launch date. Much of the value is in what you prevent, so the scope has to name the routine work, not just the emergencies.

Per user or per device? A decision table

In practice you usually end up with a mix. Charge for what drives your work.

Write the device cap into the per-user line: "up to two devices per user, such as a laptop and a phone". Without it, "per user" stretches as far as the client's hardware budget.

The sections of a managed services proposal

The scope rows are where disputes start. Count everything you can: response times in hours, visits per month, devices per user. The method is the same as for any project: every line needs an edge, as the guide to scoping deliverables you can count shows.

A costed sample: managed IT for a 28-person firm

A made-up example. Names, counts and amounts are examples: replace them with your own.

Example

Calder IT (Utrecht) proposes managed IT to Harbour & Lane, an accountancy firm with 28 staff on one site. Today one partner handles IT in the evenings. Backups have not been tested in a year and two former employees still have active accounts.

Two plans per user, the client picks one.

	Essentials	Complete
Price per user per month	€45	€69
Helpdesk, remote, working days 08:00–18:00	Yes	Yes
Response to an urgent ticket	4 working hours	1 working hour
Patching, accounts and backup checks	Yes	Yes
Endpoint security tooling, licence included	No	Yes
On-site visit	On request, hourly	One day a month
Devices per user	Up to 2	Up to 2

The monthly price on the Complete plan.

Line	Quantity	Price each	Per month
Complete, per user	28	€69	€1,932
Server management, per server	2	€120	€240
Network: firewall, switches and Wi-Fi	1	€90	€90
Total per month excl. VAT			€2,262

One-off, shown apart from the monthly total.

Line	Price
Onboarding: documentation, tooling on every device, account clean-up, first backup restore test	€2,400
Total one-off excl. VAT	€2,400

Outside the monthly fee: out-of-hours and project work at €135 an hour, billed as used. Hardware and Microsoft licences are bought by the client. Minimum 20 users; 12-month minimum term, then rolling with one month's notice.

How the bill moves with the user count, on the Complete plan.

Month	Users that month	Users billed	Per user	Devices and network	Total per month
Month 1	28	28	€1,932	€330	€2,262
Month 4, three new hires	31	31	€2,139	€330	€2,469
Month 9, after a restructure	18	20 (minimum)	€1,380	€330	€1,710

On Essentials, month 1 would be 28 × €45 = €1,260 plus €330 for devices and network: €1,590 a month.

Three things make this sample work. Onboarding is its own line, so the client sees what the normal month costs. The minimum protects the margin in month 9: billing only the users still active would push the per-user income below what the helpdesk cover and the monthly visits cost to run. Servers and network are billed on their own lines and do not change. And the plans differ in things the client can check, such as response times and visits, not in vague words like "premium support".

What to put under "out of scope"

IT clients assume a lot is included, because "you do our IT". List the usual surprises:

• Hardware: buying, and replacing what breaks out of warranty
• Software licences, such as office and email subscriptions, unless the plan says otherwise
• Projects: a move to a new office, a new server, a migration to another system
• Out-of-hours and weekend work, unless the plan includes it
• Support for staff's personal devices
• Training beyond quick how-to questions on the helpdesk

I always put my hourly rate for work outside the proposal into the proposal itself. Extra requests will come, and the client should already know what they cost. In IT that rate does a lot of work: every project and every out-of-hours call is billed at it, so it belongs on the price page, not in a later email.

The user-count rule

In managed IT the friction usually comes from the count, not the price. Settle four things in writing:

1. When you count. On the first working day of the month, from the client's user accounts.
2. What counts as a user. An active account with a mailbox, for example. Shared mailboxes and service accounts do not count.
3. The minimum. The number of users you bill even when fewer are active.
4. The notice for a smaller team. Users added are billed from the first count after they join; a lower count applies from the month after the client tells you.

If you also offer a longer term for a lower price per user, show it as a choice next to the standard term, as in good, better, best pricing. The method for working out the floor under a monthly fee, and testing it on a quiet and a busy month, carries over to IT support.

A user-change clause you can copy

Template

Users, devices and changes

1. The monthly fee is the plan price per user multiplied by the number of users, plus the device lines in this proposal.
2. A user is an active account with a mailbox. Shared mailboxes and service accounts are not users.
3. We count users on the first working day of each month. New users are billed from that month.
4. We bill at least [minimum] users a month, however many are active.
5. A lower count applies from the month after you tell us in writing.
6. Each user may use up to [number] devices. Extra devices are [price] per device per month.
7. Work outside this plan, including projects and out-of-hours calls, is billed at [rate] per hour excluding VAT, after your approval.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. For your situation, ask a lawyer or accountant.

If the client wants a fixed price for a project next to the monthly support, such as an office move, quote it separately; choosing between a fixed price and billing by the hour helps you decide how.

How Propozit helps

Propozit has a Managed IT template. Its per-user line is a subscription, and your client can change the number of users within the lowest and highest numbers you set. Add two or three plans and the client picks one, with the totals updating as they choose; see plan choices and live totals. Onboarding goes in as a fixed-price line, so the one-off total and the per-month total show apart, never added together.

An hourly rate for out-of-hours work is shown as "Billed as used" and stays out of the totals. The full list of templates is in proposal types.

Propozit is in early access and free to start.